![\"\"](\"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/minta.jpg\")
Every Christina Dudley book is a joy to read, and this is no exception. I\u2019ve been looking forward to Minta\u2019s story since she first appeared in the background of her eldest sister\u2019s story, shooting arrows with her bosom friend Aggie, and generally getting up to all sorts of hoydenish mayhem. How was she ever going to turn into a heroine? I couldn\u2019t wait to find out.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the premise: Minta\u2019s best friend Aggie has traitorously fallen for rakish Francis Taplin, but Minta knows he\u2019s only looking to restore the family\u2019s fortunes after his own expensive lifestyle has brought them perilously close to ruin. How can she save Aggie from him? She turns to Francis\u2019s friendly stepbrother, Nicholas Carlisle, for aid. Between them, they come up with a cunning plan \u2014 Minta will turn herself into the sort of young lady that will draw Francis\u2019s attention away from Aggie. When that fails to distract him sufficiently, they use his rivalry with Nicholas to good effect – Nicholas will pretend to court Minta. But Minta hasn\u2019t taken into account that her efforts will look like the ultimate betrayal to Aggie, and neither of them have considered how hard it will be to maintain a pretend courtship that they\u2019d both like to be real. Especially when they can\u2019t tell each other the truth.<\/p>\n
Dudley specialises in these complicated webs of deceit, but she does it so cleverly and then untangles them so elegantly that the reader can only watch in admiration. I love the humour, too, which often made me laugh out loud, especially Minta wrestling with The Bosom. And yet there are tiny vignettes that are so moving they make me want to cry. Minta\u2019s newest stepmother, for instance, who reads the proposal letter from Nicholas to Minta, and is swept with emotion because she, for many years a spinster and then with a very pragmatic marriage of convenience, has never received anything one tenth as romantic.<\/p>\n
Of course, everything sorts itself out in the end, and nobody does anything wildly stupid. I was rather amused by Francis\u2019s solution to his trials, Minta and Nicholas get their happy ending, and both Tyrone and little sister Bea became more interesting in this book. I see that Tyrone is next up for a romance, and perhaps we\u2019ll see Bea in a starring role after that.<\/p>\n
Some quotes that caught my eye:<\/p>\n
\u2018Great guns! Where did Aggie get that bosom? Has she had it all along?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Minta, you look like you were drowned and then murdered.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Not everything is a love story.\u2019 \u2018That only means you have not read to the end.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
A terrific book on a multitude of levels. I highly recommend it, but if you\u2019re new to the author, start with The Naturalist and enjoy her entire repertoire. Five stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every Christina Dudley book is a joy to read, and this is no exception. I\u2019ve been looking forward to Minta\u2019s story since she first appeared in the background of her eldest sister\u2019s story, shooting arrows with her bosom friend Aggie, and generally getting up to all sorts of hoydenish mayhem. How was she ever going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[187],"class_list":["post-4825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-dudley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4829,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions\/4829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}